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I seem to have somehow managed a whole year out of my first set on my Ridley. It's SRAM Apex 1x11. I can pay nearly £40 for SRAM branded or £6 plus postage from Merlin for Clarks VX. Clarks good enough? WWSTWD?
As for a bleed kit, TotalBleedSolutions OK from ebay?
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/114009106900
Cheer m'dears as always.
Kit looks ok I think. I have bleedkit.com one and it looks the same. Just make sure you have the right one to connect to your calipers/levers. The bleeding edge port is different. Epic have similar kits too.
Pads, well you have done well on the OEM ones. I'm sure Clarkes/Uberbike/Superstar/Fibrax etc are fine too. I mostly have uberbike sintered or race matrix.
Edit- one of those would glaze on a gravel bike but not on a mountain bike...can't remember which one though! Probably depends on how you brake though, I suspect the more binary braking on a mountain bike is better for avoiding glazing anyway.
I used the Epic Bleed kit on my SRAM Force brakes and it worked well.
I recently installed the galfer blue pads on my brakes and they made a big difference to the braking.
I use Swisstop pads, which work and last well for me.